THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1910. FINANCIAL JUGGLING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9703, 28 January 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1910. FINANCIAL JUGGLING.

We doubt if the general public will find the same satisfaction in the figures given by Sir Joseph Ward at Hastings on Monday night as they appear to afford to the Prime Minister himself. The peculiarity about "retrenchment" as practised by the present Government is that it leaves us with a net increase in expenditure. Last April the Prime Minister promised to effect "a total saving exceeding a quarter of a million sterling." Nine months of the year have now gone by, and the total expenditure is £64,764 more than it was for the corresponding period of 1908. Of this increase £51,694 was in. "permanent charges" ever which, Sir Joseph Ward tells us, "the Finance Minister has no control." The item consists mainly of kiterest on the public debt, which, of course, has to be paid now that the debt is actually incurred; nevertheless, the Finance Minister possessed plenty of control had he chosen to exercise it at the proper time, namely, when he and his colleagues considered how much should be borrowed dor-

ing 1908. They decided to borrow as mueb money as they were likely to be able to raise, and, of course, the increased expenditure for interest has to be met. But even the departmental expenditure shows an increase of £13,070 for the nine months. This may be retrenchment as understood by a Finance Minister in dealing with the public expenditure of a colony, but a commercial firm faced with the necessity of shortening sail would iind the same method an infallible means of bringing about an investigation of its affairs by the Official Assignee. At Hastings on Monday night, says the Christchurch "Press," Sir Joseph Ward juggled with reductions in one department increases in another, with the returns for the December quarter and the returns for the nine months, with such amazing dexterity that one seems to be watching a financial Cinquevalli or Chung Ling Soo. 'he display was e::citing and brilliant, but perplexing rather than illuminating. At one moment when Sir Jos-

eph Ward talked about reductions of £174,454 in certain departments, we breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that his promises of retrenchment had really resulted in something tangible. Thia hope vanished when it appeared, a little later, that there had been increases in certain other departments amounting to £187,524, so that in reality there was a net increase of departmental expenditure amounting to £13,070, and an increase,in the whole expenditure, including permanent appropriations, amounting, as already stated, to upwards of £64,000. By way of contrast, it may be noted that when, in 1879, the Hail Government took office for the purpose of restoring

the finances, they pulled down the ordinary expenditure from about i £4,000,000 in 1879 to £3,715,471 in 1880, and co £3,412,027 in 1881. In those days, however, retrenchment was a real thing, and not a sham —a catch-word to tickle the ears of a tooconfiding pubhc. The truth is that Sir Jpseph trusting to his luck to pull the Dominion oat of the position of difficulty which threatened it when the money market became tight, and it is most fortunate both for tlu Ministry and for New Zealand that a revival in trade has set in.